Ruins

by Gerald Yelle

We have them now. We used to knock old buildings down
but now we leave them standing, hoping to revisit them
when we get old instead of building on the ground
they occupied. We want our town like the ones in Greece.
When a house catches fire there and they don’t
have the money to rebuild, they don’t tear it down.
They know people appreciate ruins. I saw a whole
neighborhood like that near Agamemnon’s tomb.
It looked as if a row of houses had been removed
to leave a space between the neighborhood of ruins
and the rest of Mycenae. But even the houses that
weren’t part of the ruins stood with their windows
and doors blank and empty like faces without mouths.
Haunted as the mountains around them, they looked dark
even in broad daylight. I was glad I didn’t see any
people. I wouldn’t be able to tell who the ghosts were.       

***

Gerald Yelle has worked in restaurants, factories, schools and offices. His books include The Holyoke Diaries, Mark My Word and the New World Order, and Dreaming Alone and with Others. His chapbooks include No Place I Would Rather Be and A Box of Rooms. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.